hills intervened, and the expense of carting the coal over the seven miles was too great to make it worth his while to send the coals to Manchester. The duke consulted James Brindley, a millwright in his service, who, though he was without any scientific education, not only advised him to make a canal, but carried out the work for him. There were indeed already canals in existence, but there were none to the making of which the natural obstacles were so great. Brindley's canal passed under hills through tunnels, and over valleys on aqueducts. A famous engineer on being shown a valley which the canal had to cross, asked where the water was to flow. When a spot high up on the hill-side was pointed out to him, he said that he had often heard of 'castles in the air,' but he had never before been shown where one was to be built. In 1761 the canal was finished, and many others were before long made in other parts of the country. 26. Cotton-spinning. 1738. In old days, the spinning of thread was mainly committed to young women, who were consequently known as spinsters. In the middle ages and long afterwards the material spun was wool, and Parliament had been so anxious to extend the manufacture of woollen cloth that it even passed an Act directing that all persons should be 'buried in woollen.' Gradually, in the eighteenth century, calico came into 1767-1779 PROGRESS OF INVENTION 815 use, and in 1738 the invention of Kay's flying shuttle enabled the weavers to produce double as much as before, thus creating a demand for cotton thread which all the spinners in England were unable to meet. 27. Hargreaves' Spinning-Jenny. 1767. Necessity is the mother of invention, and, in order to provide thread for the weavers, Hargreaves, in 1767, invented the spinning-jenny, which worked several spindles at once, and enabled a single spinner to produce more than a hundred threads at the same time. By this discovery many persons were thrown out of work, as there was not a demand for calico enough to occupy all the spinners who at first had been needed to produce threads with their hands only. Accordingly, Hargreaves' neighbours broke his machine and obliged him to fly for his life. In the long run, indeed, Hargreaves' invention, like all labour-saving inventions, would, by producing cheaply, create a demand which would increase, instead of diminishing the number of labourers employed in the manufactures; but it could hardly be expected that uneducated men, threatened with starvation, would look so far ahead. James Brindley: from the portrait by Parsons, engraved by H. Cook. 28. Arkwright and Crompton. 1769-1779.-In 1769 Arkwright took out a patent for an improved spinning machine worked by water-power. He, too, became obnoxious to the hand-workers, and his mill was burned down by a mob. He was, however, determined to succeed, and was at last allowed to live in peace. A yet further improvement was made in 1779, when a poor weaver named Samuel Crompton invented a spinning-machine known as 'the mule.' When his machine was finished, hearing that a mob was collecting with the intention of destroying it, he took it to pieces and concealed it. When quiet was restored, he put it together, and began to spin. Manufacturers came round his house, and peeped through his windows to discover his secret. Crompton had not enough money to take out a patent so as to secure the profits of his invention. He, therefore, told his secret, on the promise of the manufacturers to raise a subscription for him. They subscribed no more than 671. 6s. 6d., and made thousands of pounds by the work of his brains. 29. Cartwright's Power-loom. 1785. Before Hargreaves invented the spinning-jenny, no more cotton had been spun than was required by the weavers. After Crompton invented the 'mule,' the weavers could not make into calico nearly as much thread as was produced. In 1785, a clergyman named Cartwright patented a power-loom, which, by weaving by machinery, increased the number of looms and thus kept the spinning mules' in full work. 30. Watt's Steam-Engine. 1785. There were many other inventions in different branches of manufacture; but the most important of all was Watt's steam-engine. For some time steam-engines had been employed for pumping water out of collieries (see p. 708), but 1785 THE STEAM-ENGINE 817 they consumed much fuel, and therefore cost too much to come into general use. James Watt, a mathematical instrument maker in Glasgow, discovered a way of lessening the cost of fuel, and of making the engine more serviceable at the same time. He entered into partnership with a capitalist named Boulton, and set up works near Birmingham. At first manufacturers distrusted the new engines, and Boulton and Watt only succeeded in inducing them to buy by offering to go without payment if the engines sold did not save their cost in the course of a year. Before long all manufacturers were anxious to get them. "I sell here," said Boulton to George III., when he visited his works, "what all the world desires-power." 31. General Results of the Growth of Manufactures.-One great result of the invention of the improved steam-engine was the transference of population from the south to the north. Hitherto the north had been poor and of little weight in the political scale. When the north had taken part in political struggles it had usually chosen the side ultimately rejected by the nation. It fought in the reign of Henry VI. for the Lancastrians; in the reign of Henry VIII. for the monasteries; in the reign of Elizabeth for the Papacy; in the reign of Charles I. for the king; in the reign of 1789 George I. for the Pretender. Coal, however, existed in many parts of the north; the steam-engine followed coal, manufactures followed the steam-engine, and population followed manufactures. In Sussex, for instance, there was in the seventeenth century a considerable population supported by the manufacture of iron, and it was from this Sussex iron that the railings round St. Paul's were made. By the middle of the eighteenth century, however, the weald of Sussex, on which had once stood the forest which had for some time blocked the way of the South Saxon conquest (see p. 27), had been denuded of its wood, in consequence of the large demands made by the furnaces for smelting iron, and now the industry of iron manufacture moved entirely to the north. At first, indeed, the transfer of labourers to the north was not followed by beneficial results. The crowds who gathered for work were for the most part ignorant and always in haste to be rich. There was neglect of sanitary requirements, and those who rose to be masters often wore away the lives of their workmen. As yet, law did not interfere to protect the weak-the women and children—from excessive labour, or to guard against the frequent occurrence of preventable accidents. It was as though a new world had opened in the north, of which Parliament knew so little that it neither desired to regulate it nor even thought of making the attempt. Books recommended for the further study of Part IX. LECKY, W. E. H. STANHOPE, Earl. History of England in the Eighteenth Century. History of England since the Peace of Utrecht. MACAULAY, Lord. Essays on Chatham and Clive. RUSSELL, Earl. Memorials and Correspondence of C. J. Fox, WAKEMAN, H. O. Fox. LEWIS, Sir George Cornewall. Britain, pp. 1-129. WILSON, Sir Charles. Clive. Essays on the Administrations of Great LYALL, Sir A. Warren Hastings. TROTTER, Capt. L. J. Warren Hastings. Vol. 9 (1702-1760) by T. S. Leadam. |